Photo credit by !Khwa ttu San Culture and Education Centre, Western Cape, South Africa

Amakhala Game Reserve, Eastern Cape, South Africa

WTM’s World Responsible Tourism Day to Tackle Climate Change

World Travel Market’s World Responsible Tourism Day (WRTD) 2015 will tackle the issue of climate change weeks before it is discussed by the United Nations to achieve the first legally binding agreement in 20 years.

WRTD – the largest day of global responsible tourism action – takes place on Wednesday 4 November, weeks before the world’s leaders gather in Paris at the United Nations Climate Change Conference to discuss how to reduce greenhouse gas emission to limit the global temperate increase to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The November 30 –December 11UN conference aims to succeed where the same event in Copenhagen failed in 2009, by reaching a global consensus on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

WRTD will kick off with a keynote address from controversial Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change in the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester.

Anderson, who is also Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, advises the Prime Minister’s office on carbon trading and has contributed to the development of the UK’s Climate Change Act.

He believes the UNCC’s objective is “just” about possible “if we deliver a radical reduction in energy consumption now”. However, he believes “we have done nothing about climate change for the past 25 years”.

Following Anderson’s keynote address will be a panel debate, chaired by BBC journalist Stephen Sackur, where he will be joined by senior industry executives, and Anderson, to discuss how the travel industry can help in the reduction of greenhouse gasses.

The afternoon’s content concludes with the carbon debate – where the motion The tourism industry could do much more to take responsibility for reducing carbon emissions will be hotly contested.

World Travel Market, Senior Director, Simon Press said: “The United Nations Climate Change conference in Paris has the potential to have a significant impact on the travel industry.

“With World Travel Market taking places weeks before the conference we can help set the agenda by discussing climate change and the role the travel industry can play in addressing the issue.

“Kevin Anderson is a highly respected speaker on the climate change and will present to delegates a thought-provoking, controversial and potential worrying picture of where the world is on tackling climate change.”